“Hearsay,” “irrelevant,” “totally inappropriate” — the prosecutor grew more and more incensed Tuesday at the trial over the mock bombing of the legislature on Canada Day 2013.

Unlike the weeks of secret surveillance footage played like a video binge since proceedings began two months ago, lawyers for the accused terrorists now are grilling the prosecution’s first witness.

And the Crown appears far from happy.

Finally getting his chance to cross-examine, veteran Vancouver counsel Mark Jette quickly established his client Amanda Korody, 31, was snared as a bonus in this elaborate police sting — her husband John Nuttall, 40, was the real target.

Both have pleaded not guilty to four terrorism charges related to the alleged plot to detonate pressure-cooker explosive devices in Victoria July 1, 2013.

The RCMP undercover officer, who cannot be identified or described by court order, said he was surprised when he met Nuttall to learn he had a Muslim wife who regularly wore a hijab or a niqab.

Both were recent converts to Islam (though often mistaken about its tenets) and Korody came to affectionately call him “Uncle Abe,” the Mountie who was playing an Arab extremist testified Tuesday in B.C. Supreme Court.

The officer said he came to think of the pair as having a “good partnership,” even though Korody sometimes addressed Nuttall as “sir.”

“She was quiet,” the Mountie said. “She was kind of leading from behind, that’s the impression I got from my four months of dealing with both of them.”

What ignited the prosecutor’s objections, though, was a question about Nuttall telling the corporal Korody was vomiting 10-15 times a day and that he feared she was suffering a recurrence of cervical cancer, for which she had earlier surgery.

While the corporal maintained he wouldn’t provide Nuttall with a gun, Jette pointed out he was eager to hand Nuttall supposedly “military-grade” high explosives.

“There are reasons for that,” the officer reiterated.

The defence has emphasized the couple’s vulnerability, their disorganization and lack of ability to focus on even simple tasks.

At the time they entered police crosshairs, they were eking out a living on welfare and methadone in a Surrey basement suite playing paintball and video war games to pass the time. Neither had a driver’s licence.

During the investigation, the RCMP staged a money-laundering scene in a hotel room to impress Nuttall, a phoney meth-lab bust (complete with official hazardous materials response) to bug the couple’s apartment and “hired” Nuttall to run meaningless make-believe errands.

As well, the Mounties provided hotel rooms to the pair in Kelowna, Delta, Saanich and Abbotsford, transportation, logistical support and the inert explosive devices.

To bolster his confidence, police bought Nuttall a suit so he didn’t have to wear his only other outfit — a leather jacket, T-shirt and army pants combo — while they conned him into thinking he was being groomed for their Islamic extremist group.

They also gave him cellphones, money for groceries, and bus tickets so he could get around.

Nuttall and Korody were so bumbling they were unable to organize the making of a black Islamic flag for their martyr’s video — the national police force provided that too.

The couple were lonely and in need of guidance, Jette said, and Nuttall perceived the undercover officer as his only real friend.

“Yeah,” the officer agreed, “we had the same kind of thinking.”

Yet, after four months, police were frustrated that Nuttall had developed no concrete plan while fantasizing about assassinating former U.S. President George Bush the Younger, slaughtering returning Canadian military personnel, firing homemade rockets at Parliament, storming a Canadian Forces base, taking hostages on a train that didn’t run, attacking a nuclear submarine at a non-existent base …. ideas culled from Rambo III, terrorist literature and computer war games.

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